Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Pujo 2011 - Mahalaya

a lot is happening here.. man in towel getting scolded, while boy completes making a mud cake, as a photographer sits to frame a picture while another looks for interesting subjects with hands in pocket, as people go around doing one or the other activity associated with the tarpan ritual..

Extract from wiki on tarpan (veneration of the dead), the wiki on tarpan itself refers to some breed of horses - 
"Ancestor worship is predominant in India among Hindus. In India, when a person dies, the family observes a ten-day mourning period, generally called shraddha. A year and six months thence, they observe the ritual of Tarpan, in which the family offers tributes to the deceased. During these rituals, the family prepares the food items that the deceased liked and offers food to the deceased. They offer this food to cows and crows as well. They are also obliged to offer sraddha (a small feast of specific preparations) to eligible Bramhins. Only after these rituals are the family members allowed to eat.

Each year, on the particular date (as per the Hindu calendar) when the person had died, the family members repeat this ritual.

Apart from this, there is also a fortnight-long duration each year called Pitru Paksha ("fortnight of ancestors"), when the family remembers all its ancestors and offers Tarpan to them. This period falls just before the Navratri or Durga Puja falling in the month of Ashwin. Mahalaya marks the end of the fortnight-long Tarpan to the ancestors."